NES Month: Double Dare

Double Dare

• Publisher: GameTek
• Developer: Rare
• Platforms/Release: NES: April 1990
• Genre: Quiz, 2D Action
• Players: 1-2
• Save: None
• Rarity/Cost: NES: Moderate (US$5-15)

Note: This article was updated on 9 February 2016.

I'll be honest. I was expecting to give this a really bad review -- I did warn you it would be a doozy -- but now that I've gone back to it yet again, it is a little better than I remember it. It's one of those games that is infinitely more satisfying in multiplayer than it is against the computer, so, you can imagine I've been missing out on a lot of opportunity. I am of course talking about the third and final title of my game show video game mini-series, Double Dare. The game show Double Dare got its start in 1986m and was one of the first original programs produced by the then-fledgling network Nickelodeon. It was a game show that challenged two teams of kids, or families, to multiple-choice questions and messy physical games. The show ran in various incarnations for seven years, and in the year 2000, got a revival called Double Dare 2000, naturally. And there's even word of another revival series coming to NBC later this year (2016)! So due to its more varied nature, you'd think Double Dare would be a great fit for a video game, even more than other game shows. But did it pan out? That’s what I’m here to find out.

The Double Dare home game first came out for DOS-based computers in 1988, and two years later, Rare ported the game to the NES. In both versions, you set up your game by HOLY CROW WHAT IS THAT!? Is that supposed to be Marc Summers? Maybe if he got possessed by the Mask!

Not-Marc Summers stares into your soul.

Anyway, creepy Marc Summers aside, you set up your game by selecting the number of human players, the computer difficulty (if applicable), team names, and player avatars. Once all that's done, the game begins with a toss-up challenge. You play all of the toss-up games, and some of the later Physical Challenges, by manipulating a meter that controls the speed and angle of your thrown, rolled, or putted objects. First you press Left to start it, then Right to stop the Speed meter and start the Angle meter, and A to stop the Angle meter. Trial and error can help you get the right values, but the meters move so quickly it's hard to be precise with them. Gorilla is one of the hardest games -- not only do you have to throw a banana into the gorilla's hand, it keeps switching from one player's side to another. I remember playing this game with someone way back when, and we both got stuck on Gorilla! Oh, and solo players beware: on the highest difficulty level, the computer rarely makes mistakes, so you're bound to lose the toss-ups if that's the case. But it's not the end of the world; the winner just gets $10, or $20 in the second round, and control of the questions.

The quiz portions are the main bulk of Double Dare. For each question, your options consist of three answers and a Dare. If you choose the Dare, the other team can either answer the question for double the money or do a Double Dare, in which control goes back to the first team, who must either answer it or take a Physical Challenge, both worth four times the original dollar value. It's best to Dare if you don't know the answer, or think your opponent doesn't know and will Double Dare you back, but everything's left to chance if you're playing against the computer, so it's tough to Dare effectively. And yet some of the questions were just designed to make you pass them over to the competition. For example -- and I'm not making this up -- there's one about the offspring of a sheep and a goat. And it's a real thing, too! The answer is "geep".

Gorilla is too luck-based for my liking.

Eventually you might get completely stumped by a question, or you just want a little variety in the proceedings. That's where the Physical Challenges come in. Some of the Physical Challenges play like the toss-up games, with the Speed and Angle meters, but some play differently for some much-needed variety. Unlike the toss-up games, you're on a time limit, so just because you're not racing against another player doesn't mean you'll have much of a margin of error here, either. Oh, and if you get a question wrong after a Dare, or fail a Physical Challenge, the money goes to the other team. The two rounds last about five minutes each, but in a one-player game, this can feel really long if you're waiting for the computer to mess up or Dare you.

The winner moves onto the Obstacle Course, where you have to run through eight randomly-ordered obstacles in sixty seconds, and collect a flag after each. This scene is presented in a familiar side-scrolling view, but you can't just hold Right to move forward like in any other platformer game... that would be too easy. No, you have to mash Left and Right rapidly to move. This goes against all our instincts as players of platformer games. I suppose it made more sense on the computer, but console gamers reared on Mario and Mega Man run the risk of getting stuck on this part.

Most of the obstacles are just variations on "keep pressing Right to continue". Some are short and some are long; the Human Hamster-Wheel in particular is a major time-sink. And then there are two obstacles, the ramp and the mountain, which require you to climb up by mashing Up instead. If you stop for even an instant, you'll start to fall down and waste time. It gets even trickier when you clear the obstacle and have to pick up a flag, because control reverts to a standard platformer setup, where you hold Left or Right to move and press A to jump. The transition can be jarring; if you don't expect it, you'll find yourself walking back and forth wildly, and you have to jump from just the right spot to get the flag or you'll miss it and waste even more time. And you don't have any time to waste -- this round is very, very tough, even if you know how to control it. Like, usually I'm only able to get past the 5th or 6th obstacle. It's true to the show for all the wrong reasons.

I can't fault Rare too much for doing what they did. I can't think of any other solutions to controlling the non-quiz aspects without changing them drastically, most of them for the worst. Truth be told, Double Dare still doesn't quite stand up to Jeopardy! or even Wheel of Fortune, so maybe that's why I've been viewing it in such a negative light. But if you own it already, you could do much worse than playing it with a friend -- as long as you both know how to play it.

Control: 1 slime dunk out of 5
Design: 4 slime dunks out of 5
Graphics: 2 slime dunks out of 5
Sound: 3 slime dunks out of 5
Value: 3 slime dunks out of 5
The Call: 50% (D)

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[1] "Double Dare - NES Screenshots". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/double-dare/screenshots.

NES Month: Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune

• Publisher: GameTek
• Developer: Rare
• Platform/Release: NES: September 1987
• Genre: Quiz
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$1-10)

Part 2 of my game show mini-series is a home version of the show that's almost always aired with Jeopardy! on TV: Wheel of Fortune. The two NES games are alike in so many ways. They were both released in 1988, published by Gametek, and developed by Rare. Even the pre-game setup is identical, except that no player characters are shown on screen, so I could very well copy and paste that part of my Jeopardy! review here. But I won't: I'll just yet you scroll down to it or click this link.

But it wouldn't do to just copy the whole review, since the two games play completely differently. For those of you who have never seen it at all in its 35 years of existence, it plays like a less morbid version of Hangman. Players spin a wheel with different money values on it and pick letters they think are used in the puzzle. Consonants can be chosen normally, but vowels (A, E, I, O, and U) must be purchased for $250 each. The player in control repeats these steps until he or she guesses a letter not in the puzzle, or lands on a "Bankrupt" or "Miss Turn" space on the wheel. When someone thinks he or she knows the answer, he or she can guess and, if correct, keep any winnings from that round and move onto the next one.

Watch out for the special spaces on the wheel. [1]

You choose letters from a ribbon going from A to Z. Letters that were already guessed are blanked out, so you will skip over them. Even though your cursor can wrap around from one end directly to the other, you'll sometimes wish that it would go faster, especially since you're on a time limit for all actions except spinning the wheel. When you get to spin the wheel, a strength meter starts moving left and right, and you must press A or B to stop the meter and spin the wheel based on the power level. Apart from the money slots, ranging from $150 to $1,000, there are three special spaces you need to watch out for. The one marked "B" is Bankrupt, which takes away all the money you earned during the round and ends your turn, the one marked "M" is Miss Turn, which ends your turn and forces you to skip your next turn, while the "+" is Free Spin. If your turn ends for any reason and you have a Free Spin in stock, you can spend one to keep your turn going.

Games in the NES versions of Wheel of Fortune last for three rounds, plus a bonus round for the winner. This makes for really short games, averaging 15 to 20 minutes, especially considering the fact that round 3 is the "Speed-Up Round", where the wheel is spun once and the value is used for all letter guesses in the round. Here, players only get to guess one letter per turn (vowels are free, but do not earn any money) and choose to solve the puzzle. If you're not ready to solve, you have to wait five seconds for the menu timer to run out and control to pass to the next player. Ironically, this makes the speed-up round more tedious than the two normal rounds. And even then, there's still a lot of waiting in store, especially if your opponents (be they human or computer-controlled) are too good.

There's a *lot* of waiting in this game. [1]

After the three rounds, the player who has banked the most money gets to play the bonus round. Here you must pick a prize to play for, then choose five consonants and one vowel to help you in solving one last puzzle. Win, and you get... bragging rights. Allow me to refer you to my Jeopardy! review once again, where I talked about the reasons why other people don't like playing game show video games. And get this - if a computer player goes to the bonus round, the game doesn't stop - you have to watch it play (and likely win). Of course, you're more than welcome to just turn off or reset your Control Deck at this point.

If for some reason you start having to re-use puzzles too much for your liking, there are a total of four Wheel of Fortune games available for the NES. The first three -- this one, Junior Edition (1989) and Family Edition (1990) are just expansion packs for the same game, apart from color and (in Family Edition) sound differences. But in 1992, Gametek switched developers from Rare to Imagitec, who made Wheel of Fortune Featuring Vanna White. And let me tell you, this version -- at least the NES port -- looks UGLY. But it wins out in the gameplay department, since it bumps up the total round count from four to five. But, if you just can't stand looking at it, you might as well get one of the other versions Imagitec made, for the Super NES, Genesis, or Game Gear.

Wheel of Fortune Featuring Vanna White.  Awful graphics vs. better gameplay... Pick your poison! [2]

Hopefully that last image I posted will help steel you for the third and final game show video game I'll be reviewing for now - because it's a doozy.

Control: 4 Free Spins out of 5
Design: 2 Free Spins out of 5
Graphics: 2 Free Spins out of 5
Sound: 3 Free Spins out of 5

Value: 3 Free Spins out of 5
The Call: 60% (C-)

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[1] "Wheel of Fortune - NES Screenshots". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/wheel-of-fortune_/screenshots.

[2] "Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White - NES Screenshots". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/wheel-of-fortune-featuring-vanna-white/screenshots.

NES Month: Pac-Man

Pac-Man

• Publisher: Namco / Tengen
• Developer: Namco
• Platforms/Release:
• NES (Tengen): 1987
• NES (Namco): November 1993
• Genre: 2D Action
• Rarity/Cost:
• Tengen: Moderate (US$5-15)
• Namco: Uncommon (US$20-40)

Okay, normally I wouldn't cover something so well-known, but Tengen's releases of Pac-Man for the NES deserve a mention simply because of the history of the company. Yes, I said "releases", plural; I will explain that in a moment. But if I'm going to cover the history of the NES, then this is one facet that I can't ignore.

Back during the reign of the NES, Atari was still making its own consoles, such as the 7800 and re-released 2600. So you think they weren't about to make games for the competition's consoles. But at the time, the company was split into two parts: Atari Corporation, which owned the brand rights and made home games, and Atari Games, which only released titles for the arcade. In order to make games for home consoles, Atari Games formed a new brand, Tengen, also named after a term from the Asian board game Go. Tengen sold ports of arcade games, most of them already released in Japan by companies (Namco and Sunsoft) which were not selling in the US at the time. However, they were also unhappy with Nintendo's licensing rules, such as that companies could only produce five different NES games per year.  So, while they released some games under the licence (Pac-Man, Gauntlet, and RBI Baseball), they secretly went to work trying to circumvent the 10NES lockout chip I mentioned before, and succeeded. These unlicenced cartridges were shaped differently, colored black instead of gray and having an angled top face. Were they supposed to invoke the shape of classic Atari cartridges? You make the call! [1]

Licenced (left) and unlicenced (right) Pac-Man cartridges. [2]

The Tengen game I will be focusing on in this review is Pac-Man. As with the other two games that they first released under license, this game was sold in both licensed and unlicensed versions. Apart from the cartridge shape and in-game copyright text, the software in both versions is identical... and almost identical to Namco's own (Japanese) Famicom version from 1985... and the one Namco finally released for the (American) NES in 1993. Yes, they were idiots for waiting so long. But don't worry about them, they're still cool. Really, the only in-game difference between the Tengen and Namco versions is that the colors are slightly different -- and even then, they're both different from the arcade version. That's about it.

Tengen (left) and Namco (right) versions of Pac-Man gameplay. [3]

So I suppose I should really focus on the differences between the arcade and NES versions instead. First thing you'll notice from these screenshots is that Namco (they developed the first port in Japan) solved the ever-tricky problem of adapting a portait-size arcade image to a landscape-size TV. While some would leave everything as is, making everything smaller, and others would rotate the image (the eyesore Atari 2600 version comes to mind), they solved this issue by putting the status bar to the side instead of the top. Truly the best compromise, at least that I could think of. And you know that overly familiar starting jingle? It's less shrill-sounding in the NES versions, due to the different instruments built into the system's hardware. And since I have more nostalgia for the NES port (licensed Tengen, to be exact), this version's sounds are actually more familiar to me than the arcade's.

Aesthetic elements are one thing, but the real challenge in porting a video game is successfully re-creating the game engine and AI. In that respect, the only major difference here is that the NES ports play a tiny bit slower than the arcade game. Other than that... you'd really have to spend hours of time on both in order to learn the differences between the two versions' AI patterns. If you're one of those people who absolutely has to have the original arcade version, well, I won't judge you (in public), but it is available almost everywhere else. It's in a couple of the Namco Museum compilation games, available as a stand-alone game for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Store, and there's bound to be more. In fact, you probably already have a copy of Pac-Man on some platform. As for everyone else, you can get your fix right here.

Control: 4 Power Pellets out of 5
Design: 4 Power Pellets out of 5
Graphics: 5 Power Pellets out of 5
Sound: 5 Power Pellets out of 5

Value: 3 Power Pellets out of 5
The Call: 90% (A-)

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[1] "Tengen (company)".  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengen_%28company%29.

[2] "Tengen pac-man image by cerberus314".  Photobucket.   http://media.photobucket.com/image/tengen%20pac-man/cerberus314/NES/PICT2279.jpg.

[3] "Pac-Man - NES Screenshots".  MobyGames.  http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/pac-man/screenshots.

NES Month: Jeopardy

Jeopardy!

• Publisher: GameTek
• Developer: Rare
• Platform/Release: NES: September 1988
• Genre: Quiz
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$1-10)

If there's one genre Seanbaby would call me out on for liking, it's game show-licensed video games. I can understand why people hate the genre; you don't physically win all the money and fabulous prizes you worked so hard to earn, and each game lasts only, what, fifteen minutes at most depending on the game. But whether I like the source material or I'm just a braniac, there are some I just happen to love. The flagship out of them all was Jeopardy! for the NES. It's also the one I have the most nostalgia for, even when I wasn't even old enough to answer the stuff correctly. Could it have been the reason why "jeopardy" was the first word I ever wrote, or was I just a fan of the TV show? Even I don't remember!

The company GameTek published all the major game show licenses up to the late 1990s. This includes Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Hollywood Squares, Family Feud, and more. The first wave of their titles was Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, both released in September 1988 and developed by Rare. Yes sir, they did loads of stuff before Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007 made them famous in the 90s. And this, after their ZX Spectrum game Jetpac, was one of the first titles they developed.

Jeopardy! is very straightforward as quiz games go. Players answer questions, based on category and dollar value, given in the form of answers and must respond with their answers in the form of questions. Correct questions earn you money based on the answer's value, and incorrect questions take that much money away from you. If I've lost you already, then you clearly haven't been around for the show's 50-plus-year run. So we'll start with the options available to you during this game's setup.

No Trebek, no problem. [1]

First, you set the number of human players, up to 3. You can choose to fill up the remaining slots with computer players, and set their difficulties. Then, each player takes turns setting their names and which character they want to use as their avatar. You may notice that the host is never shown on screen, but given later, non-Rare-developed Jeopardy! games, perhaps we should be thankful. Now, you may be wondering how they were able to handle three human players with only two controller ports on the NES. There are games out there that let two players pass around one controller, but Jeopardy! handles it a little differently. Players 1 and 3 share the first controller, and player 2 gets the second controller all to his/herself.

As in the TV edition, one player chooses an answer based on category and dollar value, and then the answer appears on screen for (up to) ten seconds. During that time, any of the players can buzz in and give a question. This is done by pressing any direction on the Control Pad (players 1 and 2) or the A or B button (player 3). Whoever buzzed in has to type in their response within 40 seconds. To simplify matters, the game handles phrases such as "what is", "who is", "what are the", etc., so you just have to answer it as if you were given a question in the first place. The game does accept alternate spellings for some questions (e.g. "Henry VIII", "Henry the 8th", and "Henry the Eighth"), but not out-and-out misspellings (e.g. "Yangtze" is accepted, but not "Yangtse").

You don't have to fill in the "what is" phrases yourself. [1]

Once the first board is cleared, the game progresses to Double Jeopardy mode, where all dollar values are doubled. On both boards, there are randomly-placed Super Jeopardy questions where the person who chose it gets to wager any amount of money, up to their current total. And then, once both boards are cleared, the game wraps up with Final Jeopardy. The players are given a category and must make a wager before the answer is given, after which they take turns giving questions. In this version, players have to go by the honor system; everyone who's not writing a question in Final Jeopardy must take it upon themselves to look away from the screen. Once everyone is done, the money is tallied up, the winner is decided, and the game ends. Repeat as often as your interest holds up.

Since Jeopardy! on the NES is a straightforward port of a straightforward game show, there's nothing much wrong with it. The computer's level of challenge is just about right for the difficulty you pick at the start of the game, but instead of giving out-and-out wrong questions, they beef it with garbled versions of the right response. But since you can jump in to answer a question at any time, waiting your turn isn't as much of an issue as in other game show games. Most of the challenge comes from the answers themselves, making Jeopardy! nearly, if not as much fun to play alone against the computer as with others.

Control: 5 questions out of 5
Design: 5 questions out of 5
Graphics: 2 questions out of 5
Sound: 3 questions out of 5

Value: 4 questions out of 5
The Call: 80% (B)

P.S. The Soviet Union still exists in this game, so keep that in mind, Millenials.

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[1] "Jeopardy! - NES Screenshots". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/jeopardy_____/screenshots.

NES Month: Spy Hunter

Spy Hunter

• Publisher: Sunsoft
• Developer: Sunsoft
• Platform/Release: NES: September 1987
• Genre: 2D Action (Shooter), Driving
• Rarity/Cost: Common (US$1-10)

I'll kick of NES Month with what has been my online namesake for almost a decade: Spy Hunter. Bally Midway first launched it as an arcade machine in 1983, one which most of us probably remember more for the coolness of its sit-down cabinet than for the game itself. But since Midway didn't produce their own cartridges for the NES, they let Sunsoft port Spy Hunter to the system in 1987. The stories about the game's development are rather well-known in the gaming community, as is the gameplay itself, so I won't bore you with it. Long story short, it's like a space shooter on wheels.

I figured I could get more miles out of this review by discussing the differences between the arcade version and the NES port. First of all, the graphics are... I don't want to say worse, but they're certainly less detailed than the original game that came out four years earlier. Then again, you could make the hardware in arcade machines as powerful as you want it, but with a console, you're stuck with what they give you. And besides, you could argue that the NES port had the best graphics out of all the others, such as ColecoVision, Commodore 64, and especially the Atari 2600.

But who cares what Spy Hunter looks like, when I have more important things to discuss? Like the fact that, in some ways, the NES port is a tad easier than the original. There are fewer cars on the road in this port, and thus fewer opportunities to crash into something you only have scant milliseconds to get out of the way from. But as far as the enemies thrown at you, more of them are the heavy types that are impervious to your machine gun and must be knocked off the road. Eventually, you might as well forget about them and drive away quickly when one pops up. Also, there are reported to be a few minor bugs in the NES port, such as one that lets you drive around offroad without crashing. You can also make the helicopter (which you must use missiles to destroy) leave you alone by repeatedly stopping when it catches up to you from behind.

Just deal with the helicopter until you get missiles.¹

The controls in the NES port are simpler than on the complicated arcade machine that we know and love. The Control Pad handles movement in all four directions, B fires machine guns, Select toggles between available special weapons (Oil Slick, Smokescreen, and Missiles), and A uses that weapon. Even though Start is not otherwise used, it doesn't pause the game -- you have to press A on a controller in port 2. Now there's a wallbanger. At least you don't have to hold Up to keep moving, and there's no gear shifter to worry about here, either.

You're going to appreciate taking the transmission off the list of things you have to handle, because port or no port, this game is hard. Sure, you start out with infinite lives for a minute or two, but once that timer's gone, you're on your own. An extra life is available if you score 10,000 points before the timer runs out, and another for every 30,000 points. My best advice for you to help stretch out your sessions is not to run at top speed all the time. Sure, you rack up points at a faster rate depending on how fast you're driving, but you have even less time to react to cars, enemy or not, appearing from the top, so if you keep crashing, it's not worth it. Especially considering the fact that if you crash, you lose all the items you waited so long to pick up. That part's always bugged me.

You start out with unlimited lives for a minute or two.¹

Spy Hunter on the NES is a solid port of a questionable game. It's one of those games that never ends -- you just keep at it until you lose your last life and try again. There's not much replay value unless you want to make it to one of the hidden boat stages or beat your high score. It does best, however, if you're looking for a game you can kill 15 or 30 minutes with -- that is, if you can handle it in the first place.

Control: 3 missiles out of 5
Design: 2 missiles out of 5
Graphics: 2 missiles out of 5
Sound: 4 missiles out of 5
Value: 3 missiles out of 5
The Call: 60% (C-)

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[1] "Spy Hunter - NES Screenshots". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/spy-hunter/screenshots.

NES Month: Intro & History

Greetings, readers! Today starts a special month for this fledgling little blog. For on October 18th, 1985, Nintendo shipped the Nintendo Entertainment System for the first time in the United States of America! So I'll dedicate the entire month of October 2010, its 25th anniversary, to reviewing NES games and hardware (and possibly continuing the Dance Dance Retrospective series).

There will also be loads of opportunity for trivia along the way. For example, that date I threw at you (18 October 1985) only refers to a limited release in the New York City area. Eleven more test releases were conducted since February 1986 until it was finally launched nationwide and in Canada in the following September. [1] But the console's interesting history doesn't start during the launch, but before it. See, the "Great Video Game Crash of 1983" took the wind out of what people thought would be a fad. But gaming computers were doing fairly well, such as the Commodore 64 and Amiga series, so that influenced Nintendo to redesign their Family Computer, or "Famicom" console (released in 1983 in Japan) into the Nintendo AVS (Advanced Video System) for the Consumer Electronics Shows in 1984. This thing came with a non-literal ton of peripherals: two controllers, a light gun, a joystick, a computer keyboard, a cassette deck, and (not pictured) a MIDI piano keyboard, and they were all wireless! ...Although it must not have been up to the standards we're used to in the 7th generation of consoles, because the wireless functions and keyboard tempered people's interest in the AVS, and as a result no systems were ordered. But if you want to check out what could have been, there is (as of this writing) one on display at the Nintendo World shop in New York City. (Darn, they get everything; what's left for Philly!?)

That's a *lot* of peripherals! [2]

But it seems Nintendo took a similar route when releasing the NES proper. There were many different accessory bundles available with the system; the big, bad one available at launch was the Deluxe Set. For US $250 (2009 value: US $491.84 [3]), you got the Control Deck, two controllers, the Zapper light gun, the Robot Operating Buddy, and two Game Paks: Duck Hunt and Gyromite. What, no Super Mario Bros.? You could get that separately or in the basic Control Deck bundle. You might also recognize later bundles such as the Action Set (with Zapper and Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt Game Pak) and Power Set (same as Action Set, but with Power Pad mat and World Class Track Meet added to the Game Pak). Again, there were non-literal tons of peripherals available for the NES.

But what about the stuff you'd use most often, the Control Deck and controllers? Honestly, what can I say? They are the very emblems of nostalgia for this sort of thing. I'm sure we all thought at some point how much the Control Deck looks and feels like something like a VCR. And brick-shaped or not, that controller had to be more comfortable than the cramping joysticks of the Atari 5200 and the like. But, I'm not afraid to be honest with this... In the long run, the NES Control Deck sucks. See, as you pop the games down with a spring-loaded hinge, some of the pin connectors stop reading those on the Game Paks correctly. And making matters worse was the "10NES" chip, designed to prevent unlicensed and imported games from working on the NES (the former intended to prevent the Video Game Crash from happening again). If a connection could not be made between the 10NES chip in the Control Deck and one in the Game Pak, the system would reset continually. Mostly this happened just because the pins couldn't make that crucial connection. Nintendo responded a little too late by releasing a new top-loading console in 1993, just two years before the NES was officially discontinued, and two years after its successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, came on the market. But fortunately, in one of rare cases where I would condone knockoff goods, "Famiclone" consoles (named after the Famicom) also did away with the hinge problem, and some even threw in support for other systems like the Super NES and even Sega Genesis. In other news, pigs have been spotted flying, more at eleven.

Here are the reviews scheduled to appear this month:

• Spy Hunter
• Jeopardy!
• Pac-Man
• Wheel of Fortune
• Double Dare
• To The Earth
• Rad Racer
• R.C. Pro Am
• Track & Field II
• Gotcha! The Sport
• Rollerblade Racer
• Kid Icarus
• StarTropics
• Silent Service
• Freedom Force
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

As you can see, with a few exceptions, I'm not going for the big guns, the Marios and Zeldas, the Mega Mans and Castlevanias, because you already know what to expect with those. As I do with all my reviews on the SDP, it's got to be something a bit more in left field. Most of the stuff I'm doing for NES Month I have nostalgic experience with, but it's not a requirement. But seriously, if this is the NES we're talking about, how could anyone in my line of "work" not have nostalgic experience with their own unique set of games?

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[1] "Nintendo Famicom: 20 Years of Fun." Gamespy.com. http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/july03/famicom/index13.shtml.

[2] "Nintendo Advanced Video System." Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nintendo_Advanced_Video_System.

[3] The Inflation Calculator. http://www.westegg.com/inflation.

Dance Dance Retrospective: 2ndMIX

Well, I'm sorry for the wall of text that I subjected you to in the last entry of Dance Dance Retrospective, especially considering the fact that there was some stuff you already knew... and a lot you didn't.  But now that I got the basics out of the way, I won't need to repeat them in subsequent entries.  And DDR isn't a franchise that changes too much between entries, for better or for worse.  So with that in mind, the changes in DDR 2ndMIX should pop out all the more.

Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX was released in Japan for the arcades in 29 January 1999 (my birthday! ^v^), PlayStation in August, and in a first, Sega Dreamcast in February 2000.  Most of the interface was carried over from DDR 1st, as were all of the songs (except on the PSX version).  What has changed, however, is for the better, especially on the mode select screen.  The Easy, Normal, and Hard setlists work the same as they did in 1st, but it's much easier to select your difficulty level.  Again, you can't change it after you leave this screen, but all you have to do is press the up or down panel twice in a row to toggle between the Basic, Another, and Maniac levels.  And as if this were not enough, if you highlight the Hard mode and press right four times, you can play with all the songs in the game available at once.  Yes, finally, we don't have to stand for artificial content lockouts anymore!

It's also easier to access the Double mode in this game.  Before starting the game, hold the left and right menu buttons and press start (Arcade), press Circle (PSX), or press Start (Dreamcast).  This will let you choose between Single, Versus, Couple, and Double.  Note that this is the same way you can access the two-player modes in 1st (sans Double); sorry I forgot to mention that.  Switching on the other modifiers is, however, another story.  On the music select screen, you have to input longer codes, but you have more modifiers to choose from.  Mirror is joined by Left, Right, and Shuffle, which rotate the steps in different ways.  Hidden makes the arrows disappear halfway up the screen, and Little simplifies the sequences by removing all but the quarter notes (you will not be able to score as high with Little on).

Some of the most notable songs from 2ndMIX are:

• "Boom Boom Dollar" by King Kong & D. Jungle Girls.  This song was originally released by the Italian band in 1989.  Considering the fact that there are no new level-1 songs in 2ndMIX, this is one of the easiest new songs, at level 2 on Basic.
• "Brilliant 2U" by Naoki.  A Euro-rave song composed by Naoki Maeda.  This hyper little tune, clocking in at a brisk 150 BPM, served more or less as a template for many of Naoki's most famous songs from future games.
• "AM-3P" by kTz.  A robotic techno/disco song also composed by Naoki Maeda.  There are a lot of irregular "chaos" steps (16th notes if you're good with music) in this song, even on Basic (level 5).  In fact, there are plenty of other songs that feature similar syncopated patterns, like "El Ritmo Tropical" and "Get Up'n Move".  This is one pattern you should get used to.
• "PARANOiA Max (Dirty Mix)" by 190.  A remix of "PARANOiA" from the first game, PARANOiA Max is a touch faster than the original and arguably more popular for some reason.  Other than that, the difficulty is similar to the original - which is to say, very hard for its time.

Gameplay is, obviously, the same as it was in 1st, as is the scoring system.  However, there's no extra stages after you're done, just like I warned you.  But if you've got one of the import home versions, the fun doesn't stop there.  The exclusive Paint Mode lets you draw new arrow shapes, Nonstop Revolution lets you play user-defined sets of songs in a row, and Edit Mode lets you design your own step sequences for use in the game.  In fact, Konami re-released the arcade version of 2ndMIX, the Link Version, which includes 5 new songs and ports for PlayStation memory cards that let you play your Edit steps in the arcade game!  From then on, the memory card ports became an option for later core series arcade games.  You might even spot one plugged into an imported machine near you, but be warned: they only accept edit data made on the Japanese home games.  So, sorry Konamix owners. :-(

But it doesn't stop there.  Konami also released two different "Club Versions" of DDR based on the 2ndMIX engine.  But rather than use any of the existing songs from 1st or 2ndMIX, all the songs in the club versions were transplants from Konami's beatmania and beatmania IIDX series of DJ simulation games.  I'll get more into that when we explore the rest of the Bemani family.  The arcade versions had the ability to link up with a beatmania IIDX cabinet, allowing up to 2 players of either game to make beautiful music together.  The club versions were also released as 2 games for PlayStation and one for Dreamcast.  However, to play the PSX versions, you have to put in a copy of 2ndMIX and change the disc from the main menu.  This also means that you can't even play the PSX club versions as imports if you're using a disc-swap device like the GameShark.  Sorry. :-(

I promise things will brighten up with 3rdMIX.